


Catharsis

by thesometimeswarrior



Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender Canon Divergence AUs [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e05 The Beach, Ficlet, Repression, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 20:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10446327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: Mai has never felt rage like she feels that night on Ember Island.





	

“Yeah, you don’t believe in anything,” says Zuko, looking at her from across the fire.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry I can’t be as high-strung and crazy as the rest of you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” says Zuko, again. (As if _he_ is in any place to pity her. She doesn’t want his pity, his condescension.) “I wish you would be high-strung and crazy for once, instead keeping all your feeling bottled up inside.” He throws a finger in Ty Lee’s direction. “She just called your aura dingy. Are you gonna take that?!”

And isn’t that so classic Zuko, to fly off the handle at every Agni-forsaken minor slight, because he is so afraid that he is nothing inside, under all the pomp and circumstance of his royal title. _She_ is not so insecure. 

“What do you want from me?” she asks. “You want a teary confession about how hard my childhood was? Well, it wasn’t. I was a rich only child who got anything I wanted. As long as I behaved...and sat still...and didn’t speak unless spoken to. My mother said I had to keep out of trouble. We had my dad’s political career to think about.”

“Well that’s it then,” says Azula, snapping Mai out of the trance she had started to find herself in. (It’s easier, a trance, she has found, when she is thinking about memories like these ones. It’s not conscious, but the trance lets her be numb and cold inside, makes behaving, makes staying out of trouble, makes being what Mother, Dad, Azula, all want from her, easier…) 

“You had a controlling mother who had certain expectations, and if you strayed from them you were shut down,” Azula explains, and Mai feels like Azula is hovering on the edge of something dangerous, trying to probe into something private and precious and _hers_ , maybe the only thing she has after fifteen years of being used as a political prop. She clenches her fists at the new sensation: like there is something that might be identified as rage beginning to build in her gut, hot and spreading…

“That’s why you’re afraid to care about anything,” continues Azula, nonchalantly. “And why you can’t express yourself.”

“You want me to express myself?!” responds Mai. And the rage boils over, carrying her to her feet and exploding out of her— _literally_ out of her—in a way she has never experienced before, never been allowed to experience before, never allowed _herself_ to experience before, as she shouts: “ _LEAVE ME ALONE!_ ”

Her hands are hot, and she sees her own surprise echoed in her companions’ stunned faces, as she watches the smoke from her palms mix with that of the campfire. 

“You’re a Firebender?” whispers Ty Lee.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I live for comments!


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